Long half-life (thousands of years) products are usually not too worrisome because they are not very radioactive. That's the reason why they are long half-life.

Short half-life (days) products are very radioactive and dangerous, but because they are quickly depleted, they are manageable.

The worst are medium half-life (decades) products. Short enough to be dangerously radioactive, and long enough to be a long term problem. These are the ones that make Chernobyl inhospitable.

I'm not an expert either, but just to explain a little bit- long half life means there's not much activity going on, and not much radiation emitted. Short half life means there's lots going on, and lots being emitted.

So an article equating long half life with danger isn't trying really hard to be accurate and precise.

I'm saying that, all other factors being equal, that stuff with a long half-life is less dangerous than stuff with a short half-life.

To put it another way, "half-life of infinity" = "not radioactive at all".

Now, there are other factors involved (type of radiation emitted, what fission products appear further down the decay chain, etc.), but none of them are made worse by a long half-life per se.

It's a scare term, pure and simple.

It's _short_ half life that can be scary, because that means a lot of radiation.